


clusters of crocus, purple and gold

by lavenderandroses



Series: come to my garden: my jonsa blossoms [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Flowers, Jonsa Spring Challenge, after the wars, implies dark!dany and pol!jon, unrevealed feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 16:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18123566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderandroses/pseuds/lavenderandroses
Summary: Sansa returns home after the wars, unsure of what the future will hold.title from "Opening," from the musical The Secret Garden by Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman





	clusters of crocus, purple and gold

_Desolation_. _Destruction. Death._ These were all that Sansa saw as she summited the hill which once again brought Winterfell into view. Not that there was much of Winterfell to be brought into view, now. Ghosts of towers, skeletons of walls, black against the white snow. Enough to prove that a fortress had once existed, but not enough to truly be her home.

_But, truly, when was the last time it was the home I knew in childhood?_ Sansa did not know. Was it the day, just moons past, when the battle for the dawn had raged through the snowy courtyards and brought down dragonfire and doom upon the stones? Or was it before that, when the Boltons torched the stronghold after routing out the Ironborn? _No. Stones and planks do not make a home, nor can their destruction unmake it_. No, Sansa knew that her girlhood home was not taken by fire or battering ram, but by her father’s own sword in the hands of Ilyn Payne, daggers at a feast, an arrow through a heart. By hands and knife and teeth and body, by whispered, poisonous words. Even by raven, whether black, white, or three-eyed. Even by no one.

No, the vibrant Winterfell where the Stark family lived their days in happiness was long gone. This war had left her no worse off in that regard. Sansa spurred her horse onward, toward the stones her ancestors had raised. That pile of black stones was infinitely better than the hateful South at her back.

The party behind her kept pace as they continued along the Kingsroad. After the last months, they were all exhausted to their very souls. Few had escaped the Long Night unscathed. Fewer still could have guessed that the worst of the conflict would come after the defeat of the army of the dead, and fewer still could have foreseen that Queen Cersei was not to blame for the human warring which came after. No, Cersei had been just as surprised as anyone, though perhaps less so than Sansa, that the final war before the peace was fought not by lions, wolves, or kraken but by dragon against dragon.

And, somehow, in a battle of dragon against dragon, the victor had been a wolf. That wolf awaited Sansa and her escorts in the snowy entry courtyard of the castle, which had been cleared of most of its rubble. But it was not the sight of her home in ruins that made Sansa’s breath catch in her throat. King Aegon Targaryen’s dark eyes followed her as she dismounted and cautiously approached him. _How many times have we been through this? How many times must we be reunited?_

Every time Sansa reunited with him, he was something different to her. Brother, traitor, cousin, savior, king. Every time, Sansa’s heart had twisted in such strange ways, and each new introduction saw the feeling grow stronger. The man in black and the woman in grey developed a palpable tension even as they grew closer. And by now, Sansa knew why. Sansa had been through enough by now to know her own heart. In the white snow at Castle Black, she could paint it as relief. At his return with the Dragon Queen, she could convince herself it was righteous betrayal. Upon the revelation of his true identity, shock. Relief, betrayal, and shock, certainly not lust, jealousy, or ecstatic vindication.

But then Sansa had been taken. Taken away from the seat of her power in a moment of chaos, dumped back into the pit of horror which was Cersei’s court. And Sansa knew how this would end. Had she not before been Cersei’s prisoner, waiting fruitlessly for a brother to come rescue her? Robb had not come. Rickon was gone now, and if Cersei told her true, Bran was gone as well. And Jon? Aegon? He was no brother of hers, and he had his Targaryen queen to rule by his side now. It would be foolish for him to come for her. She herself would not have advised it.

Just weeks later, when she was startled awake in the night, she understood what she felt to see Jon crouched by her bed, his face inches from her own. He shouldn’t be there, he couldn’t protect her. But he _was_ there, and he would be her savior. And she loved him.

With black fire in his eyes, he had led her out the passageway, out of the keep, into the custody of a grim-faced Jaime Lannister. Ser Jaime and Lady Brienne had spirited her away to Casterly Rock for safekeeping, leaving her only a last burning look at Jon and one frantic grasp of his hand before she was forced to wait. And wait. And listen to whispers of the Dance of Dragons come again, the Targaryen princess turning on her nephew, who had been Ned Stark’s bastard, who had been her vassal, her lover. Sansa heard conversations that ended when she entered rooms, conversations that implied that Jon Aegon Snow Targaryen was indeed loyal to a queen but that she was neither a dragon nor a lion. Sansa saw the looks that the servants and soldiers alike gave one another as she passed through. And so Sansa had waited, in great fear and anxiety and darkness. Fear, anxiety, darkness, and hope.

So now, when Sansa looked at her brother-traitor-cousin-savior-king, bleak in black against the white snow and grey-black stones that surrounded them, she knew her own heart. Every fiber of her being, all that was left of her wanted to run to him, to leap into his arms as she had done so long ago now, but everything had changed. He was her king – not the King in the North, but the King of all Seven Kingdoms, he was her cousin, and she loved him fiercely.

Sansa sighed. She could put on the mask again today that she had worn for so much of her life now. She closed the distance only slightly and dropped low to offer her courtesies. Lady Brienne and Ser Jaime followed behind. “My King,” she murmured, not able to look into his eyes. In her life, Sansa had known many fears, but this longing and uncertainty was unlike any of them.

“Sansa.”

Sansa rose, nodding to her escorts over her shoulder that they may take their leave to what little shelter had been restored in Winterfell. She looked back to her hands, down to Jon’s feet. In moments, they were alone.

“Sansa.”

Jon narrowed the distance between the by a step.

Sansa’s eyes rose to Jon’s chest. Stark wolves stared back at her. She loved him, she loved him. He was king. He had been her brother. He would not want her. He could not love her.

“Sans—“

“Are there enough stores remaining in the crypts that my men and I may begin to rebuild our home?”

Jon was taken aback by the question, she could see as she dared flick her eyes up to his face before turning her gaze to the walls.

“The battles may have been won, your Grace, but winter is still here. I have heard no reports of how long this winter may be, even though the Others have been defeated and the long night ended. You may plan to return south, but I will not. With your leave, I would remain, even if the spring is years away.”

“Sansa, please.” She had turned from him, willing herself not to show the depths of her feelings, so the nearness of his voice caught her by surprise.

“I would never ask you to go south again. I would never dream of it. Of course we will stay here, and rebuild our home.”

Sansa felt Jon’s hand on her arm and her heart was leaping from the battlements again as he guided her to turn to him, his face so close to hers that she could not help but finally look into those eyes.

_Oh._

“I won’t be parted from you, not ever again, Sansa. Every fight I’ve fought to get here, every crown upon my head has been for you, to protect you.” Sansa could feel his breath upon her skin, his grasp on her arm firm but gentle. “The north is my home, and you are the north, Sansa. I would stay here with you, rule all the kingdoms from my own home, with you.”

She held his gaze for an infinite moment, wondering if the fear and love in her eyes looked the same as what she saw in his. Jon broke their gaze with a quick breath, looking down to the hand that wasn’t holding Sansa. Her eyes followed.

As his hand emerged from his cloak, she saw that he held five crocuses, three purple and two gold. It had been many years since the last spring, but Sansa’s memory of Father bringing in the crocuses, the first flowers of the spring, to her and Mother as clearly as if it were yesterday. Jon held them up to her, and she felt her mask melt away, ice at winter’s end. When was the last time she had smiled so truly? When she met his eyes once more, a shade had lifted there too.

“Spring is coming, Sansa. And you must know, surely you must—I love you. I would see you happy. I would make you my queen, but only if you wanted it. If you want me.”

How could she speak, when her heart had surely burst? The purple and golden flowers swam in the tears that seemed to have filled her eyes.

“Is Sam here with you?”

Confusion darkened Jon’s face for a moment.

“He is, my Lady.”

Sansa’s joy burst out in laughter, only furthering Jon’s bemusement. This was not the Winterfell of her childhood, nor was she the same as the girl who had lived there, but she was home and she was free and spring was coming. She reached to smooth his hair with her free hand, for she would not be letting Jon take back her flowers, and closed the final distance between them.

“Fetch him to the Godswood at once. My bouquet is made already, see? And I would not wait another moment to be your wife.”

Sansa saw triumph fill Jon’s eyes but only for the slimmest moment, because then his lips were on hers and nothing mattered but the feel of them, at long, long last. The feeling of home.

When Winterfell was rebuilt at last, the Southron lords began to make a pilgrimage northward. Lords and ladies of all the great houses gathered in the bleak great hall to pay respects to their dark King, their red Queen, and their wee princess, tucked in her mother’s arms in a blanket embroidered in gold and purple flowers.


End file.
